Perin Mahler

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My current body of work, titled Autobiographies, is a series of large, multi-figure paintings illustrating various aspects of my life both personal and professional. In these works I use the format of history painting, normally associated with the heroic and eternal, to depict quotidian subjects. Using complicated structures and often large casts of characters, I’m attempting to conjure a dramatic presence from a scene that might be experienced on a daily basis. Most recently, the themes of these paintings have veered toward domestic subject matter, focusing on parenthood and its various experiences. I’m interested in the idea of responsibility both in the sense of physical care, with its concomitant associations of anxiety and fatigue, and in the habits and personality traits bequeathed through heredity. These works, almost as much still life as figure compositions, use objects to represent the burdens of domestic life.